The blasting revealed the extent of the rust damage. Fortunately for the areas of concern it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. We did find new areas from a previous repair job on the left rear quarter and left rear door along with evidence of bondo. All the bondo was removed and any rust damage to the bottom of the doors will be patched with fiberglas.

This is about as stripped as she is going to get before the media blaster does the rest. I am not pulling the engine or getting the interior blasted except for the exposed wings and door jambs where there are rust issues.

To prep ourselves on the windshield removal, we got the c-post and fixed rear door glass out. Both of these are installed with lock strips. On the c-post glass, we pulled the lock strip out, but on the fixed rear door glass we were able to remove it with the lock strip intact. The plastic lock strip for the c-post glass is available through Restoration Specialties. The left side came out clean and looked good, but the right side has some rust under it.

Media blasting is scheduled for Monday August 1st, so we’ll be removing the remaining glass and trim on Friday.

Dana feels that he has done what he can to rough the body and save quite a bit of time for the body shop. The primer is only there to protect the exposed metal from rusting when the sections were torched for shrinking. The next step is to pull the head liner, bumpers, lights, door mechanisms, wipers, window scrapers and glass then its off to the media blaster. I’m shooting to get it up there in the next two weeks.

After some careful thought, consultation, second opinions et cetera .. I think the best route seems to be to strip down the car myself, get it media blasted and then have an independent body shop work on getting the car a new finish. Because there are several rust spots, media blasting will really help to make sure the car gets a proper foundation for a good paint job and even more important expose any issues that may be covered up with paint and bondo. Without taking care of the rust spots now, they’ll always be a problem.

Fortunately I have a good friend who has been in the business for about 35 years and has good contacts as well as tools/techniques and suggestions. We worked out a deal and got started on the car today. We should have it ready for Alternative Blasting sometime in early July.

(Took the door handle off to start working on the door and quarter panel)